Where Waters Gather

Tagged “ritual”

  1. Grounding? Centering? Balancing?

    ritual practice

    I’m fascinated by the commonalities and differences in various pagan and magical practices, and also in the terminology we use for them. A perfect example is the first thing that pretty much every “how to do magic” or “how to do ritual” guide covers, the topic of “Grounding and Centering.” It seems like a simple topic, but there’s still a ton of diversity, and to some extent confusion, in how we talk about it. Today, I want to go a bit into the theory behind those things, to try to figure out just what we mean when we use those words, and share the approach that I’ve landed on, which seems to be a bit different from a lot of others I see.

  2. A therian journey ritual

    ritual therian

    This post from a few weeks really struck a chord for me. While I am a coyote, and an initiate of the Pack Tradition, it’s really important to me for therianthropy/otherkinness/altherumanity to be inclusive of other sorts of experience as well. Diversity and accessibility are really important. To that end, I want to share something I came up with originally for a therian retreat in 2023, as a way to bring folks along on an experience of their other side(s), whatever that may mean for them. This ritual was constructed for a group, but it should be pretty easily adaptable to individual practice as well.

  3. Small Offerings

    prompt ritual

    This week’s prompt:

    I want you to write about small offerings. Offerings made on a daily or weekly basis, or offerings made spontaneously, rather than offerings that need more thought put into them, or are part of bigger things like rituals.

    Write about those small moments of remembering the gods and spirits, and the small things you give back to them.

  4. Songs in Ritual

    ritual song prompt

    This week’s prompt from Trace:

    I want you to write about songs, in a spiritual context. What can songs do for folks coming together in spiritual ways? What songs do you have feelings about, good and/or bad, from previous spiritual experiences? What do you hope to do with music and songs to help yourself and others connect?

  5. The First Circles

    evenlight myth ritual

    Last weekend was Evenlight, the Conflux tradition’s celebration of the spring equinox. At our gathering, we focussed on the ideas of how spirituality can be immanent, or present in our daily lives, and this felt like a good story to go with that idea.

  6. Reindeer Lessons

    ritual winter

    My connection with reindeer started because I thought they were cute. I found the look appealing. I liked the gender complication of a deer species where both sexes had antlers. Like many furries, I decided to be a deer for winter.

  7. 3 Pagans on Tap - Storytelling Ritual

    video 3pot glowtide ritual

    Over the Glowtide break, I was honored to be included in a storytelling ritual hosted by 3 Pagans on Tap, where I got to tell the story of the first Glowtide. My part starts at 43:50 but I do recommend listening to the whole thing, since there's some truly wonderful stuff throughout. Thanks so much for inviting me to be a part of this!

    Please do be aware that this is a video of a ritual, so watching it could be considered participating in that ritual, even though it's not a live event anymore.

  8. Waters Gather - a story for beginnings

    wanderers myth evenlight ritual calendar

    This is a myth for the beginning of the year, the start of a new time in life, or any other times when the road is unclear and full of uncertain emotion. I told it at our Evenlight (spring equinox) ritual circle this past weekend.

  9. Kindled Fire 2021

    ritual kindled fire calendar

    Yesterday was our first circle of the (Gregorian calendar) year, the rite of Kindled Fire. This is the time of year when the sun’s increasing presence in the day starts to be noticeable, when we begin to think about what we can do with the oncoming warm seasons. It’s a tenuous time; in many places, February is still one of the coldest months of the year, and where we live now, it still tends to be very dark and rainy. In fact, last night’s ritual was the first one in years that had to be substantially altered because of inclement weather.

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